The present invention is directed to equipment and procedures for setting pockets on the front of tubular shirt bodies, especially shirt bodies of tubular knitted construction.
The setting of pockets on tubular knitted shirt bodies historically has been a labor intensive operation, which has been resistance to previous efforts to fully automate. In general, the pocket setting operation involves bringing together a precut shirt body with a precut pocket ply, folding the margins of the pocket ply to provide hems, placing the folded ply at the proper location on the front of the shirt body, and while holding the folded ply in position sewing it along the side and bottom edges. Although the individual operations of folding the pocket ply in advance of sewing, and of sewing the folded ply to the shirt body, are in themselves well known, it has proven difficult to provide reliable and economical machinery for repetitively performing the necessary pocket setting operations with a minimum of operating personnel.
The Rovin U.S. Pat. No. 3,670,675 discloses an early effort to automate pocket setting operations, albeit not for tubular shirt bodies. The equipment disclosed in the Rovin et al. patent is not only complex and costly, but also occupies a great deal of factory floor space, limiting its suitability for many commercial garment manufacturing operations. Moreover, it is not suitable for setting pockets on tubular garments.
In accordance with the present invention, a system is provided which incorporates a plurality (preferably four) of activity stations radially arrayed about a central axis. The successive activity positions include a loading position in which tubular shirt bodies and pocket plies are manually positioned by a machine operator, a folding position in which the pocket ply is folded to form hems and then clamped against the front of the shirt body, a sewing position in which the folded pocket ply is secured to the shirt body, and a stacking position, in which the processed parts are removed and stacked for further processing in other areas.
To particular advantage, in the system of the invention, a rotatable, indexing platform is provided having a working position for each of the activity stations mentioned above. In any rotationally indexed position of the turret, the working positions of the turret platform align with the respective activity positions, so that actions are performed in sequence as the turret platform is successively indexed about its axis. In order to simplify the equipment and minimize floor space requirements, all of the power functions of the indexable turret mechanism are mounted on a central pillar and do not rotate during indexing movements. Instead, the mechanisms of the several movable work positions of the turret are brought successively into alignment with each of the index positions, at which one or more stationary power devices is available for actuating the particular devices or mechanisms to be employed at the particular activity position. The use of electrical slip ring systems and/or rotary fluid coupling devices is made unnecessary.
Using the procedure and apparatus of the invention, a single machine attendant can easily operate a four-station turret machine, to enable pocket setting operations to be carried out on tubular shirt bodies in a highly efficient and economical manner.
For a more complete understanding of the above and other features and advantages of the invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment and to the accompanying drawings.